Letters From Grandpa #95

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 95

Dearest grandchild,

Today’s letter will deal with the subject of “power”. It seems that man has been in a never ending search for more power, and justifiably so. The discover of the lever, for example, enabled primitive man to move heavier objects. The harnessing of animals enabled him to plow more ground and transport more material. The harnessing of the wind with sails, and rivers with water wheels provided endless sources of energy to benefit mankind. The invention of engines powered by steam, diesel, and gasoline are essential components to the progress of civilization as we know it.

Not far from where we live is a huge mining shovel known as “Big Brutus”. It is located just south of West Mineral Kansas. It is 16 stories tall, weighs 11 million pounds, and has a dipper big enough to hold 150 tons. This is sufficient to fill three railroad cars. Of all things, it is powered by electricity. How different our lives would be if we had not learned to harness the power of electricity.

Even more potent, however, is nuclear power. Albert Einstein said about atomic energy: “It's true. If you could harness its power—that is, turn every one of its atoms into pure energy—the paper clip would yield about 18 kilotons of TNT. . . In the Hiroshima explosion, countless atoms of uranium were split apart in a nuclear chain reaction. Each time an atom split, the total mass of the fragments speeding apart was less than that of the original atom. The bomb, in essence, transformed three-hundredths of an ounce of mass into a cataclysmic burst of heat and light.”

When I was young we would put a fire cracker under a tin can and the explosion would send it high into the air. When we put a cherry bomb, under the can, however, the explosion was so powerful that it blew the can to pieces.

The point is, that if the atomic energy in a paper clip equals 18 kilotons of TNT, then there has to be a greater power than the atom to hold all of that energy together and keep it from exploding. Only God has that kind of power. He is “Omnipotent” or “all powerful”.

Paul makes reference to God’s power holding the universe together by saying: “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col 1:16-17)

J. Russell Morse went to Western China as a missionary in 1921. The people with whom he worked were so primitive that he had to introduce to them the concept of the wheel. Bro. Morse spent his life preaching in Asia and his descendants have done the same. Last October I was privileged to go to Thailand and work with his grandson, Ron Morse. At any rate, on one of his few trips to the states, Bro. Morse was given only a light blanket to sleep under on a very cold night. When asked the next morning how he slept he reluctantly confessed that he had shivered all night long. His host then asked if his electric blanket was not working. Bro. Morse had never heard of

an electric blanket. He was humbled by the realization that by simply twisting a knob he could have been as warm as he wanted to be.

The point of the story, of course, is that we too can experience great discomfort if we do not learn how to appropriate the power of God. This is precisely the point Paul made to the Ephesians. He wanted the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened to understand their “hope”, the “riches of their inheritance”, and the “exceeding greatness of God’s power” (Eph. 1:18 - 23). He went on to explain that the power available to them was precisely the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and set Him at the right hand of God in the heavenly places.

In chapter 3 of the same letter, Paul insisted that God was able to “to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph 3:20).

When Abram grew discouraged because he had no son and felt that God had abandoned him, he called upon God to look at his situation and realize that because he had no heir his servant Eliezer would inherit everything he had.

God took Abram out of his tent and told him to look up into the heavens and count the stars. Abram was 86 years old at this time and had seen these very stars thousands of times. On that night, however, “Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to h im for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). By contemplating the power of God in the stars, Abram was able to appropriate the power of God in his own life.

Here is a video about the stars that is over 5 minutes long. Watching this video can either be boring, or exciting. It depends upon what you are thinking about as you watch. It is my prayer that contemplating the stars can do the same thing for your faith as it did for the faith of Abraham.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWwm0ytMkUI

I love you,d

Grandpa Boyce